Barron Field
Barron Field (23 October 1786 - 11 April 1846) was an English-born Australian poet and judge, author of the first book of poetry published in Australia. Life Youth Field was the second son of Esther (Barron) and Henry Field, a London surgeon and apothecary. He was educated as a barrister, and was called to the Inner Temple on 25 June 1814. He was a great student of poetry and frequently contributed to the press, being for a time theatrical critic for The Times. He became acquainted with Charles Lamb and his circle. Crabb Robinson called on Field in January 1812 and found Lamb and Leigh Hunt there; he records in another place that at Lamb's house on 23 May 1815 he met Wordsworth, Field, and Talfourd. Judge in New South Wales In 1816 Field accepted a commission as judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and arrived in Sydney on 24 February 1817. Governor Macquarie, writing to Under-secretary Goulburn in April thanked him "for making me acquainted with Mr Field's character. He appears to be everything that you say of him and I am very much prejudiced in his favour already from his mild modest and conciliating manners, and I am persuaded he will prove a great acquisition and blessing to this colony". Field was soon at work framing the necessary "Rules of Practice and Regulations for conducting the Proceedings of the Court". His salary was £800 a year with a residence, government servants, and rations for himself. In 1819 he published First Fruits of Australian Poetry, the first volume of verse (although it had only twelve pages issued in Australia. Lamb reviewed it far too kindly in the Examiner for 16 January 1820. An enlarged edition appeared in 1823. Though Field carried out his duties ably and conscientiously he does not appear to have been able to keep himself clear from the petty squabbles and jealousies of a small settlement. An echo of this may be found in the description of Field by John Dunmore Lang as a "weak silly man who fancied himself a poet born". Sir Thomas Brisbane, writing to Earl Bathurst in January 1824, stated that Field "had embraced every opportunity of falsely and foully slandering me and my government". But Brisbane could be irascible if he thought his honour or dignity was touched, and his first ground of complaint appears to have been that "during his first two years in the colony, Field had never once entered Government House". However, word was already on the way to Brisbane that Field had been recalled, and Lamb, writing at the end of 1824, mentions that "Barron Field is come home from Sydney. He is plump and friendly; his wife really is a very superior woman". Field had been granted a pension of £400 a year from 4 February 1824. Gibraltar and late life Field accepted the position of advocate-fiscal in Ceylon in December 1828. He was soon afterward appointed judge of the Court of Civil Pleas at Gibraltar. Disraeli called on him there in 1830 and gave an unflattering description of him in a letter to his sister. Field has a disagreement with the Gibraltar Governor, Sir William Houston over the handling of a case involving a Spanish smuggler ship the Guerrera. In 1836 Crabb Robinson spoke of intending to visit him at Gibraltar, and in 1841 Field printed another small volume of verse, Spanish Sketches, at the press of the garrison library there. In 1844 he was back in England writing to Crabb Robinson from Torquay. He died on 11 April 1846, survived by his wife (who died in 1878), there were no children. Recognition Field wrote the first volume of verse to appear in Australia."Notes on Life and Works," Selected Poetry of Barron Field (1786-1846), Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto, UToronto.ca, Web, Nov. 20, 2011. He also founded the first savings bank in Australia in June 1819. He is spoken of with respect in Miss Marion Phillips's A Colonial Autocracy. He was the B.F. of one of the most famous of Lamb's essays and the recipient of more than one of his delightful letters, which suggests that he must have had likeable qualities. He had some claims to be an Elizabethan scholar, his special interest being Thomas Heywood. His Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, published in 1825, is an interesting collection of some of the earliest scientific papers relating to Australia. Publications Poetry * First Fruits of Australian Poetry Sydney: printed by George Howe, 1819 **revised edition, Sydney: privately published, printed by R. Howe, 1823; Sydney: R. Edwards & R. Shaw, 1941. * Spanish Sketches. Gibraltar: privately published, 1841. * The Kangaroo, and other poems ''. Sydney: Barn on the Hill, 1941. Non-fiction *''An Analysis of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1811. *''Hints to Witnesses in Courts of Justice''. London: J. Butterworth, 1815. *''A Review of the Late Publications on Libel of Messrs. George, Holt, Starkie & Jones''. London: Reed & Hunter, 1815. *''A Vindication of the Practice of Not Allowing the Counsel for Prisoners a Accused of Felony to Make Speeches for Them''. London: J. Butterworth, 1828. *''Barron Field's Memoirs of Wordsworth'' (edited by Geoffrey Little). Sydney: Sydney University Press, for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1975. Edited * Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales; by various hands London: John Murray, 1825. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Barron Field, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 17, 2016. See also * List of Australian poets References * *C.H. Currey, 'Field, Barron (1786 - 1846)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, MUP, 1966, pp 373-376 Retrieved 18 October 2008 Notes External links ;Poems * Selected Poetry of Barron Field (1786-1846) ("The Kangaroo") at Representative Poetry Online *"La Ciriegia: An austere imitation of Milton's L'Allegro" * Barron Field (1786 – 1846) in the Australian Poetry Library (5 poems) *Barron Field at PoemHunter (5 poems) *Barron Field at Poetry Nook (5 poems) ;About *Barron Field (1786-1846) in English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Field, Barron (1786–1846) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Category:1786 births Category:1846 deaths Category:Australian people of English descent Category:Australian poets Category:Judges of the Supreme Court of New South Wales Category:19th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets